How sensors detect value enhancements for any business

Mid-market enterprise leaders and IT directors are capturing new value and growth opportunities by leveraging the Internet of Things (IoT) with the aid of specially-equipped sensors as part of a managed network platform.

Having a managed network platform is essential in leveraging any up-to-date sensor’s specific IoT capabilities. So too are robust connectivity across the enterprise that allows for real-time, low-latency management and monitoring of these sensors, as well as reliability and complete visibility across the network.

Working through a centrally operated dashboard that is a key component of the managed network platform, IoT sensors can be set up to communicate with a multitude of cloud-connected devices at any enterprise. This in turn helps leaders and IT managers minimize business disruptions, reduce unnecessary costs, maximize resources and improve employee/customer experiences.

 Whatever your industry or the size of your enterprise, IoT-enabled sensors offer complete transparency coupled with cost-effective control and the ability to do more with less. Whether keeping pace or seeking competitive advantage in a demanding market, IoT-enabled sensors are proven difference-makers for winning business and driving success. The IoT sensor market is expected to climb from $8.4 billion in 2021 to over $29.6 billion by 2026, registering a compound annual growth rate of 28.6 percent.

Let’s look at three industries where sensors help build value and reduce loss.

Retail – How sensors sharpen efficiency

For merchants and retail managers, sensors often augmented by cameras collect vital behavioral and visual data on customers that is then recorded and processed by cloud-enhanced dashboard systems and services.

• Monitor foot traffic: IoT-connected sensors have the ability to do motion-based recording and provide users with motion heat maps. Sharp-focus cameras even identify what signage catches the most attention, providing pinpoint data for buyer-behavior analysis and strategy.
• Safeguard assets: Whether it is surveilling unauthorized intrusion of rooms where valuable merchandise is stored, or watching out for adverse storage conditions, sensors offer many ways for you to react to security issues before they escalate. In some cases, they can even be connected to devices, e.g. alarms, to help to resolve a potential problem before it even begins.
• Optimize physical conditions: IoT-connected sensors employing a cloud-based portal can allow for closer engagement with all business activities whatever the observer’s physical location, including detailed environmental monitoring. Air sensors, for example, can read a room’s temperature while simultaneously measuring for hazardous particulate matter or excess room noise. They can also identify hot spots or airflow issues.
• Facilitate non-traditional shopping: Automated check-out and curbside pickups are expected by more customers today than ever before. IoT-enabled sensors can facilitate such service offerings to minimize impact on employees while boosting security and customer satisfaction.

Manufacturing – How sensors improve productivity and safety

In a recent survey, 97% of 600 manufacturers questioned agreed IoT is the most significant new technology available in their market. IoT-enabled sensors provide manufacturers of all sizes with tools for more deeply understanding workplace conditions.

• Monitor environments: IoT-enabled sensors can watch for and call out issues such as water leakage or substantive changes in temperature or humidity levels before they disrupt operations. They can also track variances of temperature, humidity and other physical conditions, helping managers ensure total compliance with best practices for specific types of manufacturing.
• Go green: IoT-enabled sensors allow manufacturers to watch over their manufacturing processes in a way that is not only economically efficient, but environmentally sustainable, reducing emissions and energy consumption in a holistic way that can be monitored in concert with all regulatory requirements.
• Oversee throughput: IoT-enabled sensors allow for greater precision in oversight of factory-floor conditions, capturing potential disruptions in manufacturing processes before they have a chance of becoming major cost drains. IoT-enabled sensors offer the potential to monitor aspects of machine operations and baseline functions that can slip past more casual observation.

Healthcare – How sensors protect lives and livelihoods

IoT-enabled sensors facilitate real-time monitoring of patient conditions whether they are in a waiting room, a hospital bed or an ER. They also serve healthcare organizations in other critical ways.

• Restrict access: IoT-enabled sensors with cameras help manage as well as monitor access to areas that need enhanced security, like emergency rooms, pharmaceutical supply rooms and nurse stations.
• Support remote care: Patients can interact with doctors who are outside the healthcare facility (or if the patient is in quarantine) with the aid of camera-enabled sensors. According to News Medical: "Smart cameras also offer greater sensitivity than can be afforded by human assessment, tracking subtle changes in the tone of skin and using a range of measures to infer other vital signs such as pulse.”
• Improve speed to care: IoT-enabled sensors can monitor the flow of patients in and around the healthcare center in ways that help identify service backlogs and improve the overall experience for patients and caregivers alike. 

Watching over the bottom line

The applications for IoT-connected sensors across various private and public spheres of activity are unlimited, from communicating instantly with travelers’ smartphones to improving vacation experiences to monitoring classroom safety at schools. Employee comfort and safety across a wide range of businesses can be minutely tracked with the help of sensors that measure total volatile organic compounds (TVOC) inside work areas.

To get the most out of IoT-enabled sensors, enterprises need the right kind of network platform that connects across an entire enterprise to enable dashboard-ready insights using the data gleaned by sensors.  Managed Network Edge, for example, is designed to harness critical information from IoT sensors and allow for action to be taken instantly. Such a platform offers users not only the option of enjoying fuller control, but critical scalability to grow with any enterprise's changing needs and deeper technological capacity.

How can your enterprise be doing more by leveraging the IoT? Learn how to exceed your business goals today and tomorrow with Spectrum Enterprise solutions.